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1— FEM—aFFINITY
—2
FEM—aFFINITY
Fulli Andrinopoulos / Jane Trengove
Dorothy Berry / Jill Orr
Wendy Dawson / Helga Groves
Bronwyn Hack / Heather Shimmen
Eden Menta / Janelle Low
Lisa Reid / Yvette Coppersmith
Cathy Staughton / Prudence Flint
A NETS Victoria & Arts Project Australia
touring exhibition, curated by Catherine Bell
Cover Prudence Flint Feed 2019 oil on linen 105 × 90 cm Courtesy of the artist, represented by Australian Galleries, Melbourne Back Cover Eden Menta & Janelle Low Eden and the Gorge 2019 inkjet print, ed. 1/5 100 × 80 cm Courtesy of the artists; Eden Menta is represented by Arts Project Australia, Melbourne — Co-published by: National Exhibitions Touring Support Victoria c/- The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia Federation Square PO Box 7259 Melbourne Vic 8004 netsvictoria.org.au and Arts Project Australia 24 High Street Northcote Vic 3070 artsproject.org.au — Design: Liz Cox, studiomono.co Copyediting & proofreading: Clare Williamson Printer: Ellikon Edition: 1000 ISBN: 978-0-6486691-0-4 Images © the artists 2019. Text © the authors, NETS Victoria and Arts Project Australia 2019. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors. No material, whether written or photographic, may be reproduced without the permission of the artists, authors, NETS Victoria and Arts Project Australia. Every effort has been made to ensure that any text and images in this publication have been reproduced with the permission of the artists or the appropriate authorities, wherever it is possible.
3—
Lisa Reid
Not titled 2019
Contents
7 NETS Victoria Preface
Ellen Wignell
9 Arts Project Australia Foreword
Sue Roff
13 Let Go of That Fear, and Just Do It
Sim Luttin
19 If Collaboration Is the Method,
Activism Is the Intention
Catherine Bell
25 The Art of Attentive Love
Jacqueline Millner
30 Artists
74 List of Works
77 Acknowledgements
—4 Eden Menta & Janelle Low Eden, Kim and Oily 2019 FEM-aFFINITY installation view
5— Tour Schedule Arts Project Australia, Vic 15 June – 20 July 2019 Devonport Regional Gallery, Tas 25 January – 15 March 2020 Benalla Art Gallery, Vic 18 April – 28 June 2020 Noosa Regional Gallery, Qld 18 July – 23 August 2020 Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Vic 10 November 2020 – 17 January 2021 Bunjil Place Gallery, Narre Warren, Vic 6 March – 25 April 2021 Riddoch Art Gallery, Mt Gambier, SA 22 May – 4 July 2021 Acknowledgement of Country NETS Victoria and Arts Project Australia acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this catalogue was produced, the Wurundjeri and the Boon Wurrung of the Kulin Nation. As this exhibition travels across Country, we pay respect to each of the traditional custodians of these lands and their Elders, past, present and emerging.
—6 Left to Right Heather Shimmen Glazed 2008, Lost II 2008 FEM-aFFINITY installation view
7—
NETS Victoria / Collaboration is something we celebrate at NETS Victoria. As an organisation
that centres on working closely with galleries, curators and artists to create
Preface touring exhibitions, we see collaboration as one of our defining traits. What
better way to reveal our passion for collaboration than to present an exhibition
that asks artists to work together, ‘riff’ off each other and consider old works in
a new light? FEM-aFFINITY achieves just that.
NETS Victoria is delighted to work with Arts Project Australia to present
— FEM-aFFINITY, an exhibition that explores the female psyche and collaboration
between artists of mixed abilities. Curator Catherine Bell has paired together
Ellen Wignell
female artists from Arts Project Australia and from the wider Australian art
Acting Director,
world to explore similarities and differences in their work. The end result is
NETS Victoria
an outstanding exhibition that speaks to feminism, inclusion and collaborative
practices.
Arts Project Australia makes a huge contribution to the diversification of our
arts landscape by championing artists living with disability. Working with their
fantastic team has demonstrated how they are innovators within both the arts
and disability sectors. One of the main strengths of this exhibition is the fact
that all the artists involved see themselves first and foremost as artists, and it is
so rewarding to see that their shared experiences have sparked new friendships
that will live on well beyond this tour.
Through this exhibition tour, NETS Victoria is excited to provide opportunities
for artists to travel to each destination, to give talks or workshops or to
participate in panel discussions. For us, this signifies further ways in which
we can collaborate with the artists, extend their involvement in the exhibition
and bring their art to life. It also creates new ways of working with regional
galleries and their audiences, enabling a deeper engagement with the
exhibition. We like to think of this as a trickle-down effect, where hosting a
NETS Victoria show can offer increased support to everyone involved – from
exhibition-makers to exhibition-goers. In this way, these exhibitions become
larger than the sum of their parts, beginning connections and relationships
that engage multiple levels of the artistic community.
By bringing these artists together through the notion of affinity, Bell has
shown an acute perception of the people around her. This exhibition and
catalogue celebrate the shared understandings of these artists together with
Bell’s curatorial underpinning of the show: questioning established categories
and hierarchies of practice, acknowledging voices and identities and embracing
feminist principles of collaboration. Through Bell’s essay and the writings
of Jacqueline Millner and Sim Luttin, we are invited to participate in this
dialogue and become collaborators ourselves.
—8 Left to Right, Top to Bottom Jill Orr Lunch with the Birds #1–8 1979 FEM-aFFINITY installation view
9—
Arts Project Arts Project Australia is a creative social enterprise that supports artists with
intellectual disabilities, promotes their work and advocates their inclusion
Australia / in contemporary art practice. Since its inception in 1974, Arts Project
Australia has aimed high and has built a reputation both in Australia and
Foreword internationally for its philosophy of supporting many highly talented, skilled
and passionate artists and raising the visibility of the outstanding work that
they produce in Melbourne. The proof of our endeavours lies in the consistency
and quality of the exhibitions and programs we deliver and the opportunities
—
and experiences we broker for our artists. Arts Project Australia artists are
Sue Roff included in exhibitions all over the world and are represented in countless
Executive Director, public and private collections.
Arts Project Australia
Arts Project Australia and exhibition curator Catherine Bell believe that
Chair, Public Galleries through genuine partnerships, unexpected and creative things will happen.
Association of Victoria We’re thrilled to partner with leading organisations NETS Victoria, the
Australia Council for the Arts, and the Limb Family Foundation to bring
FEM-aFFINITY to audiences across Australia. Echoing words from Arts
Project Australia’s manifesto seems fitting:
That individual creativity triumphs over conformity, and divergent
voices make life much more interesting.
That art is about revealing ourselves and creating meaningful connections.
I can’t wait to see the impact that FEM-aFFINITY will have on metropolitan
and regional galleries, their visitors and broader communities.— 10 Fulli Andrinopoulos Not titled 2019
11 —
Left to Right, Top to Bottom
Jane Trengove
Blue Day 2015, Last Light on Trees 2015
Volcanic Action 2015, Storm Brewing 2015
FEM-aFFINITY installation view— 12 Eden Menta & Janelle Low Eden with Her Tongue Out 2019
13 —
Let Go of That Fear,
and Just Do It
Anyone who knows Arts Project Australia is aware that we are a Global —
leader in the arts. With a 46-year history stemming from our Melbourne- SIM LUTTIN
based studio and gallery, it is no mean feat that we have achieved this
Curator & Gallery Manager at
status. It is a testament to the quality of the artwork and the commitment
Arts Project Australia and the
to contemporary practice by the artists. It is also an acknowledgement
Deputy Chair at Craft Victoria
of the professional support, promotion, advocacy and partnerships that
Arts Project Australia cultivates and which underpin our philosophy and
everything we do.
Organisations worldwide like Arts Project Australia help to reshape
long-held perceptions of who can participate in contemporary art practice.
Hybrid studio/gallery/representative organisations such as ours elevate
the profiles of marginalised artists through art and disability advocacy.
Ultimately, we generate positive social and cultural shifts across the globe,
actively transforming the way people critically engage with a diverse range
of artists and their work – artists who would otherwise be overlooked.
At Arts Project Australia, we take a strategically proactive approach toward
working in the cultural sector. We are committed to boldly leading by example
and, by doing so, set new industry standards in working with marginalised
artists and connecting them with the national and international art sectors.
We do this by professionally supporting people with an intellectual disability to
be artists through our studio, gallery and broader representation and advocacy.
We actively partner, present, promote, write about and contextualise our artists
and their work within contemporary art in collaboration with other leading
institutions, publications and public platforms.
Much thought goes into our role as an industry leader, which has led to
greater respect, awareness and opportunities for marginalised artists in
Australia and overseas. Our advocacy empowers people, and we change
long-held perceptions and outdated paradigms regarding the capacity of
people with an intellectual disability to work and be counted as legitimate
participants in the arts. In recent decades, significant steps have been taken
in Australia to improve arts participation rates for people with a disability.
There has also been increasing recognition globally of the value of the arts
in representing diverse voices, which has a positive effect within communities
and generates a greater sense of belonging.— 14
The right of everyone to participate in and enjoy the arts has been enshrined
in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights since 1948,1
and there is global recognition of the intrinsic and instrumental value of the
arts in enhancing wellbeing and strengthening communities. Despite this, it
is only recently that many public and government agencies and others have
sought to enable people with an intellectual disability to enjoy the arts as
both practitioners and consumers. Article 5 of the 2001 UNESCO Universal
Declaration on Cultural Diversity states that:
Cultural rights are an integral part of human rights, which are universal,
indivisible and interdependent. The flourishing of creative diversity
requires the full implementation of cultural rights … all persons have
the right to participate in the cultural life of their choice and conduct
their own cultural practices, subject to respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms.2
More needs to be done to move beyond issues of social and institutional
categorisation. For example, grouping people with disability in exhibitions
that are solely of work by ‘people with disability’ – rather than in
contemporary art exhibitions more broadly – can result in harmful
stereotyping and ‘othering’. So, rather than meaningfully engaging
marginalised artists in contemporary art discourse as legitimate voices,
these exhibitions tend to group these artists on the periphery of contemporary
art and often in the feel-good ‘community art’ section. This common one-
dimensional representation undermines the dedication to professional
practice and quality of work that contemporary artists – who happen to have
an intellectual disability – are making. A more vigorous movement towards
arts equality still needs to happen and will require a significant cultural
shift to an environment where fostering an open, all-encompassing and
diverse arts community is something we come to value, expect and just do.
In 2018, Arts Project Australia was invited to participate in a panel discussion
with Catherine Bell, Jane Trengove and Lindy Judge as part of the University
of Melbourne’s Doing Feminism / Sharing the World conference led by Professor
Anne Marsh. Arts Project Australia presented a paper titled Foraging for
Feminism & the Power of Doing, which raised issues of gender power imbalances
and marginalisation in the arts as well as the lack of visibility and the under-
representation of female artists with disability. We provoked the audience
to consider the systemic lack of representation of artists with disability,
let alone those with an intellectual disability, in galleries, institutions,
collections and online – and if an artist is female, it is even worse. To this
day, the mainstream arts sector does not often consider including these artists.
If those working within the sector do consider them, they go to organisations15 — such as Arts Project Australia for recommendations of artists. While these opportunities are of great benefit to our artists, it is practically impossible for those sitting outside the establishment to engage and participate. The Doing Feminism / Sharing the World conference dialogue fuelled further conversations with our panel peers, where we discussed taking the idea of doing feminism further and touring the panel interstate to stir things up nationally. We felt that we had begun a conversation that needed to be had and that our provocations were a starting point rather than an end point. After many discussions, there emerged the idea to invite Catherine Bell to present an all-female exhibition at Arts Project Australia based on doing feminism, and FEM-aFFINITY was born. Arts Project Australia regularly invites arts professionals, including directors, curators, artists and writers, to partner with us on exhibitions and projects. It is a strategy to increase awareness of our artists and their work, as well as to empower artists by engaging with their contemporary peers, enhance critical discourse and widen our professional networks. It is also an opportunity for advocacy and to agitate for broader attitudinal, social and institutional change. Inviting Catherine Bell to work with us on an exhibition about feminism – or, more accurately, an exhibition focused on the embodied experience of doing feminism – created an opportunity to bring marginalised female artists who work at Arts Project to the fore and to place them alongside their contemporary female peers. It was also a chance to challenge preconceptions of what feminism is and to explore what it can be if the legitimate or activist ‘feminist voice’ is given broad parameters. The exhibition raised a number of questions; for example, is an established artist who has an intellectual disability making any less of a feminist statement with their work than their contemporary female peers? Is someone whose primary mode of communication is through art any less of an artist than their contemporary peers? Is having an embodied knowledge of art- making that drives practice a lesser feminist act than being a feminist artist? Where is the fundamental human right to self-determination? The artists in FEM-aFFINITY are women who are positively forging inimitable careers in the arts, demonstrating a dogged determination and dedication to their practice. They are doing it – they are doing feminism. We believe the best creative outcomes stem from having shared values, such as reciprocity, trust and friendship. These values are commonly associated with feminist principles, and FEM-aFFINITY sets a high standard for these values and for empowerment in the arts. Arts Project Australia engenders this approach within its organisational culture and, innately, we seek these qualities when collaborating with external artists, curators
— 16
and arts professionals – an approach that is also central to Catherine Bell’s
practice. It is how we create a better culture where the representation of
diverse perspectives is at the core. Not because it is the right thing to do
but because it is an empowering model to work from and is what we should
fundamentally expect as artists, arts professionals and human beings.
FEM-aFFINITY is a multi-layered, multi-ability, inter-generational, female-
led group exhibition and is the start of a much bigger conversation that has
feminist values at the core of its curatorial premise. The exhibition, which
presents collections of past work juxtaposed with new work and collaborations,
demonstrates the participating artists’ depth of practice and imparts to
audiences the breadth of practice that is possible within feminism. The
exhibition recognises that there is a myriad of voices, methods, interpretations,
understandings and synergies within feminism, which also includes a kind
of accidental feminism born out of doing. Accidental feminists aren’t deliberately
creating work within a traditional feminist canon; rather, they have a depth of
practice as female makers, to the extent that they lead by example and have an
impact on others by doing. Accidental feminists inspire others in art and life –
look at what Cathy Staughton has achieved in her 30-plus-year international
career as an artist. She has worked in the Arts Project Australia studio since 1989
and has had four solo exhibitions, including at MADmusée in Liège, Belgium,
in 2002. She has an enviable CV that reveals she has shown in more than
120 group exhibitions in Australia, Belgium, the USA and Switzerland and is
represented in various collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria.
To go the distance as a female artist is an empowering feminist act. It is
validating for the artist and for their extended network, as well as for other
aspiring artists, to see that women (from all walks of life) are carving out
meaningful, thought-provoking and critically engaging careers in the arts.
Their work forms part of a vibrant arts ecology that recognises that difference
is something to celebrate and not isolate.
Finally, in a recent conversation with Eden Menta, we reflected on her
art practice and the recent video that Arts Project Australia produced to
promote her and her work. We posed the question of whether she considers
1. United Nations, Universal Declaration herself to be a feminist artist. While she is currently not actively creating
of Human Rights, https://www.un.org/ feminist work, Menta is proud of her art practice as a young female artist
en/universal-declaration-human-rights/;
accessed 27 July 2019. and said that she ‘hopes other women see my work and are encouraged
2. 2001 UNESCO Universal
by it … [when people] see my work, it might inspire them to make art’.
Declaration on Cultural Diversity, By approaching her practice this way, Menta is doing feminism. She pondered
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php- this for a moment and then said, ‘I hadn’t thought about it that way’, but
URL_ID=13179&URL_DO=DO_
TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html; agreed it is a way to think about what she is doing. As Menta affirmed of
accessed 27 July 2019. art-making in her recent video, ‘Just let go of that fear and just do it’.17 —
— 18
19 —
If Collaboration Is the Method,
Activism Is the Intention
FEM-aFFINITY is an exploration of the synergies between the works —
of selected women artists and speculates on multiple interpretations of Catherine
female identity. FEM-aFFINITY is a way of referring to all things ‘FEM’: it Bell
signposts how feminism underpins the curatorial premise and reinforces
Associate Professor of Visual
ways intersectional feminism can integrate disability voices, concerns and
Arts at the Australian Catholic
experiences into the broader art-world conversation. Here the emphasis
University, curator and multi-
centres on inclusion, and facilitating collaborations between the artists
disciplinary artist represented by
is integral to this project, especially as collaborative practices have a
Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
longstanding prevalence in feminist art, social movements and activism.
FEM-aFFINITY draws from socially engaged art that encourages shared
perspectives, raising awareness of issues that face diverse communities and
cultivating relationships within collaborative frameworks. The relaxed and
welcoming atmosphere of Arts Project Australia’s open plan studio, where
the artists work alongside each other, promotes creativity and community.
This model creates a space that values relational processes of art-making
and reinforces FEM-aFFINITY’s curatorial premise of ‘inclusion’ by linking
artists from non-marginalised contemporary practice with their female
contemporaries at Arts Project Australia to meet, share, observe, reflect and
make artwork.
This approach shifts the discussion away from disability and focuses on the
artistic interests, aesthetics, processes and social interactions of the Arts
Project studio, and how this is grounded in feminist principles. Witnessing
the different and reciprocal ways the artists collaborate illuminates concepts
of interdependence, trust, friendship and embodied knowledge. It highlights
how relational art practices have an affinity with feminism, but also further
provokes the inverse question: Is feminism implicitly relational?
Incorporating both new and past works by the 14 artists, the exhibition
positions the artists as contemporaries, acknowledging their longevity of
practice and sustained visual enquiry. There is a distinction that must be
made here: the curatorial intention is not to conflate all works in the show
with feminism but, instead, to show uncanny correspondences and assert
difference and diversity within art-making by female artists.— 20
In this vein, Prudence Flint and Cathy Staughton explore female identity in
their painted and drawn portraits of women in interior spaces. They diverge
in how they relate to their subjects: Staughton paints others as herself, and
Flint paints herself as others. At their first meeting, Flint gifted Staughton
numerous exhibition catalogues depicting Flint’s work, and Staughton wasted
no time reinterpreting the figures in her wild colour palette. Staughton
brings the noise to Flint’s quiet pictures: her instantaneous re-creations belie
the months Flint spends processing emotion as she methodically plans and
executes her paintings. Spurred on by Staughton’s uncensored feelings and
direct approach to art-making, Flint created a series of drawings showing
couples in erotically charged yet somewhat awkward and unsettling embraces.
These new works expose the deviant ‘eyes wide shut’ scenarios denied her
painted female protagonists.
Meanwhile, Heather Shimmen and Bronwyn Hack share an interest
in famous women of the past and their mysterious, unsolved or violent
departures. At their first meeting, Hack shared with Shimmen the zines
she writes and digitally illustrates. Her Gothic tales of medieval torture
and death by guillotine resonated with Shimmen’s hand-printed artist
books and her taste for true crime, vampires and mythological narratives.
In FEM-aFFINITY, it’s the medium of printmaking that provides the delivery
of an exquisite corpse, where the artists share their fascination with the
macabre and corporeal. Collaboration and the intuitive process are embedded
throughout the work, mainly through the interchangeable, multi-panelled
design – the cascading anatomy of lino prints adorned with primordial
symbols is reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts, esoteric languages and
mystical spells for conjuring the dead – not to mention the Frankenstein-
esque arrangement of human and animal body parts. Skulls, bones, native
flora and fauna produce a ghostly incarnation of the monstrous feminine.
In a different pairing, Helga Groves and Wendy Dawson’s collaboration was
initially challenged by Dawson’s visual language being her dominant form
of communication. Viewing Dawson’s abstract paintings in the stockroom was
reassuring for Groves: the artworks instantly spoke to her. It was exhilarating
to observe Groves sort through the images and find an equivalent on her
iPad that resonated with Dawson’s imagery; it was evident that the artists
shared a profound affinity in colour palette and approach to repetitious
mark-making. While the themes of their work may differ – Groves’ artworks
explore geology and geophysical processes – Groves was drawn to an unusual
copper-coloured drawing in Dawson’s portfolio. This work inspired Groves’
decision to work on copper panels, paving the direction of their collaboration.
Groves visited the studio weekly with a selection of metallic pens, pearlescent21 — papers and glistening minerals from her collection, and unobtrusively watched Dawson discover the rocks and excitedly work with the new materials. Focusing on scale, interwoven patterns and metallic mediums as common ground, their artworks distil embodied knowledge of the world around them into personal cartographies. In contrast, Yvette Coppersmith and Lisa Reid have both painted portraits of prominent men in the arts. At their first meeting, they scheduled life- drawing classes at Arts Project Australia to sketch male nudes and shared their paintings of art-world identities, including curator Mark Feary and patron Peter Fay. Coppersmith noticed their subjects had coincidentally worn crisp, blue, button-up shirts to their portrait sessions, and an animated discussion ensued on the gravitas of the shirt, its charismatic rendering receiving more attention than the males wearing it. Adding to this humorous exchange, Reid recalled she had phoned Fay to ask if she could paint his wrinkles. This request is a testament to her slavish attention to detail, much to the detriment of her subject’s vanity. Echoing this attention to detail, but with subversive intent, Coppersmith’s Blue Jeans Series (2007–08) consists of seven paintings of Mark Feary rendered like a Muybridge photographic sequence. Unlike Reid, who requested permission to document Fay’s ageing complexion, Coppersmith surprised her sitter with multiple versions of himself on the gallery wall. In this way, both artists undermine power and authority, offering an empowering antidote to the male gaze by capturing their male subjects unapologetically and without compromise. In another pairing, Janelle Low and Eden Menta critique the politics of difference through their photographic self-portraits. The artists present their bodies as sites of meaning to connect lived experience to understanding. Low and Menta have been committed to this process, meeting each week at the Arts Project Australia studio and sharing their day-to-day lives, joys, heartaches and struggles. Low confirms their sense of ‘fem-affinity’ was strong from day one, emphasising that friendship is established through acts of interdependence and reciprocity. Menta and Low regard the interpersonal moments as an integral part of the collaborative process. Their final works clearly reflect their supportive relationship, especially as the collaboration shifted from Arts Project Australia to the privacy of their respective homes, where the personal is amplified and the subject is documented candidly. These intimate portraits extend the conceptual reading from a politics of difference to a politics of care, showing how intersubjective perspectives evolve within collaborative partnerships.
— 22
An exciting collaboration transpired between Jane Trengove and Fulli
Andrinopoulos. Independently, their works reveal the tension between
abstraction and reality as well as the impact of repetitive processes, as their
artworks manifest in multiple renderings of a circular form. Andrinopoulos’s
celestial orbs – or portals – tease the eye into seeking something familiar
in their colour and painterly elements. Though repeated endlessly, these
works are not static: the round form morphs gently in/on its specific colour
surround, making each work unique. Meanwhile, Trengove’s use of repetition
conveys a sense of individuality in the many. Her artwork investigates the
reliance on visual perception to inform meaning and knowledge. Hence,
the experience of viewing Andrinopoulos’s work and working alongside her
in the Arts Project Australia studio unlocked an immediate response in
Trengove. She was stimulated to create new work with the circular form and
repeat it, as she has done previously, but this time by directly invoking a
celestial body. There is an undeniable affinity between Andrinopoulos’s and
Trengove’s methodology, and yet their works remain entirely distinct. The
pairing shows a kinship of practice where both artists work freely with an
infinite mind space and within the structures of contemporary art.
Finally, Jill Orr and Dorothy Berry share mutual respect and appreciation
of the natural world. Although they haven’t collaborated on new work for the
show, their inclusion acknowledges their vital contribution to Australian art.
Berry is a veteran at Arts Project Australia, being the longest attending and
oldest artist, at the age of 77. Meanwhile, Orr is a stalwart of the Australian
art world and has influenced generations with her internationally renowned,
multidisciplinary practice. Both artists have inspired audiences through
decades of creating and exhibiting their art. Seminal works from each artist
represent the start of their careers through to the present and demonstrate
how the bird motif has an enduring presence in their practices.
Providing an alternative context for artists to create art, and for audiences
to view their art, FEM-aFFINITY expands the vision of a given work.
Over several months the artists have shared their lives, mutual interests
and artworks. They have discussed their processes and discovered
overlapping subject matter, materials and methods. Their openness to
engaging collaboratively, responsively and reflectively exemplifies the
generative approach of social relations and its capacity to broaden social
margins as well as the scope of an artist’s practice.23 —
— 24
25 —
The Art of Attentive Love
Feminist ethics pay attention to the particular rather than look to universals; —
they ground things in a contextual and narrative frame rather than seek to Jacqueline
abstract them; they use a conversational mode for decision-making rather Millner
than defer to absolutist logic.1 Feminist care ethics understand the world as
Associate Professor of Visual
being in a state of relationship, where no part is isolated and autonomous,
Arts at La Trobe University
and where small and intimate acts are connected to a broader politics.
and widely published writer
FEM-aFFINITY embraces these feminist ethics of care as alternative to the
on contemporary art
conventional moral imperative based on the injunction to respect the ‘rights’
of individuals. The moral imperative of care, by contrast, is based on the
notion of relationship, on nurturing, and a responsibility to ‘alleviate the
“real and recognisable trouble” of this world’.2 According to feminist care
ethics, what you do should be guided not by duty but by an exercise of moral
imagination, by ‘attentive love’.
Attentive love, proposes British writer Iris Murdoch, is a moral reorientation
that requires developing one’s powers of attention: it is this that allows us
to see others’ realities and to constitute them as people with separate needs
from our own, but also to recognise our needs in common. Murdoch argues
that because it asks that we consider things outside of us intently and openly,
attentive love is a discipline similar to that honed by artists.3 By bringing
together artists’ predisposition to attention and a deep commitment to
curating in relationship, FEM-aFFINITY redoubles on attentive love, creating
opportunities for artists and audiences alike to access different realities
through shared experience. That shared experience comes in part from all
of the artists identifying as women and as artists, but it is also nurtured by
the feminist curatorial approach that questions hierarchies of practice and
acknowledges that voices and identities are shaped by interrelation and
are always in the process of becoming. FEM-aFFINITY emerges from that
interaction between artists from within and outside Arts Project Australia at
an intimate one-on-one level – given the artists were introduced as pairs six
months prior to allow them time to organically develop work in dialogue – as
well as through co-working and co-exhibiting. FEM-aFFINITY emphasises the
relational nature of the works as much as of the ideas and processes behind
the exhibition.— 26
The focused and productive energy of the Arts Project Australia studio
– fuelled by acts of intense making and the companionship of working
alongside one another as well as together – was key to inviting outside
artists to loosen old habits and reflect on their own approaches. In particular,
non-Arts Project artists could risk abandoning their more individualist
and artworld-sensitive practices – defensive strategies that in a patriarchal
world are exacerbated by internalised gender expectations. The supportive
environment allowed for multiple exchanges and affirmed different forms
of making, of discourse, and of professionalism, which cut across categories
of neurotypicality and, instead, put the focus on process-based affinities.
Affinities are also foregrounded in the exhibition, which places the artworks
and the artists in a complex matrix that refuses established curatorial
and art historical categories and invites the audience to participate in
processes of becoming. Maximising freewheeling and playful connections,
FEM-aFFINITY is a riot of material and emotional interaction: it sparks
moments of ‘unrestrained revelry’ that threaten to ‘disturb the peace’ and
constitutes a ‘disorderly profusion’ that is often ‘wildly amusing’.4 The
exhibition activates as many correspondences (or affinities) as possible, and
not just between the collaborating artists. Works by each pair are installed
adjacent to each other, but there are at least two contributions by each artist
so that a sense of ongoing dialogue is created: a painting in the back space
may ping back to a photograph in the front, and the conceptual and formal
links are yet again reconfigured. That constant movement is helped along
by the disparities in scale and medium throughout the show: intimate and
informal life drawings or family snaps are interspersed with large-scale,
slickly finished paintings; floor-to-ceiling prints are set off by tiny abstract
doodles; works distinguished by their purity of line or colour punctuate
performative photography. Each work reaches out to the others across time,
space and medium, testament to the relationships between long-term studio
neighbours and within newly formed creative partnerships, as well as to the
generous and thoughtful facilitation by Arts Project Australia and curator
Catherine Bell.
Prudence Flint and Cathy Staughton respond directly to each other’s work.
Together, Cut on the Cross (Flint, 2013) and Catherine Bell Love Anne Baby Same
(Staughton, 2019) unleash the repressed eroticism of the encounter between
woman and dressmaker’s dummy. In Flint’s commanding and tightly
composed Feed (2019), the breastfeeding mother appears determined and
self-possessed, but alongside Staughton’s mother and child (A Man Doctor Cut
Poor Facts Mother Help Me Out R2-D2 Robot Baby, 2008), the latent riotousness
of the scene emerges. That latency is fully released in Flint’s fast and furious27 — sketches of a couple in various erotic entanglements, a new series indebted to the sensual licence allowed by the dialogue between the two artists’ work. An erotic charge sets alight and connects unlikely works throughout the exhibition. Lisa Reid’s portrait of collector Peter Fay (2007) – a longtime supporter of Australian contemporary artists, particularly those who don’t identify as insiders – captures the subject’s infectious enthusiasm in his gesturing hands and bright eyes, and effectively contrasts his conservative garb with his genuine love for the marginalised. But the portrait comes doubly alive by way of affinities with Reid’s life drawings and Yvette Coppersmith’s portrayals of a shirtless John Safran and a cool Mark Feary (John Safran, 2009, and Forever in Blue Jeans, 2007–08). In Reid’s striking pen and ink depictions of naked men of a certain age, detail of the striped fabric which drapes across the models’ bodies echoes in Fay’s preppy shirt, while vulnerable bellies find fleshy counterparts in Safran’s maladroit body. Such juxtapositions manage to invoke another portrait of Fay (not featured in the exhibition but present by association), namely Dani Marti’s video Bacon’s Dog (2010), which achingly documents Fay’s first sexual experience in late middle age. Power in vulnerability – the resilience that comes from remaining open to others and the world – is also embodied in the cadavre exquis created by printmakers Heather Shimmen and Bronwyn Hack. The floor-to-ceiling work stitches together body fragments harvested from the artists’ shared love of true crime and Gothic imagery, creating a monstrous feminine coursing with sexuality and laughter. The monstrous feminine as reflective of a kind of alternative ethics, not grounded in anthropocentrism, is echoed in the animal-woman hybrids of Dorothy Berry and Jill Orr. Orr’s performance Lunch with the Birds (1979) – one of the few historical works in the exhibition, and part of the only pairing where the artists’ collaboration did not entail real-time interaction – is documented like a series of horror film stills, Gothic skies included. The photographs depict the artist beseeching the seagulls at St Kilda Beach, her body a splayed offering of loaves and fishes. Adjacent hangs a painting of a bird-woman by Berry (Not titled, 2009), whose use of bird motifs over many decades, curators suggest, amounts to a self-portrait.5 While the gulls ignored Orr’s invitation for inter-species communion, Berry appears to inhabit the bird, a feat Orr got closer to in Antipodean Epic – Interloper (2016). This animus continues in the intimate scale and restrained palette of Jane Trengove’s and Fulli Andrinopoulos’s minimal forms, the intensity derived from the repetition of infinite nuance rather than through transgressive bodies and overt sexuality. The works were created in dialogue – one can imagine the meditative trance of a silent collective practice – but continue
— 28
their interaction in the gallery: Trengove’s glowing spheres hover between
two and three dimensions, between pure light and solid mass, their near-
perfection brought back to earth by Andrinopoulos’s texturally expressive
and rapid experiments. A similar exchange of energy animates the
collaboration between Helga Groves and Wendy Dawson. Groves’ intricate
abstract paintings, in part inspired by natural geological formations and
patterns, both stimulated and responded to Dawson’s concentrated mark-
making, each artist taking mutual creative cues to move their works into
rhythmic synch – embodying the essence of becoming in relation to another.
The creative momentum that comes from sharing processes and spaces for
making also drives the works of photomedia artists Eden Menta and Janelle
1. Margaret Urban Walker, ‘Moral Low, whose artistic partnership has grown into a personal friendship. That
Understandings: Alternative rapport is evident in the glimpses of shared intimate moments (Eden in the
“Epistemology” for a Feminist Ethics’,
Mirror, 2019) alongside photographic explorations of identity and sexuality
in E. Cole and S. Coultrap-McQuin
(eds), Explorations in Feminist Ethics: Theory (such as Low’s Untitled (self-portrait), 2013, and her poignant series of family
and Practice, Indiana University Press, portraits where the faces are blotted out with gold leaf). The freedom and
Bloomington, 1992, p 166.
outrageousness allowed by being grounded in the trust of another and in a
2. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: common set of values is perhaps best captured in the glorious Eden and the
Psychological Theory and Women’s Development,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Gorge (2019). In this jointly authored photograph, Menta throws back her
Mass., 1982, pp 159–60, cited in Susan head and lifts her skirt to the Australian landscape in a gesture of joy and
Mendus, Feminism and Emotion: Readings in
defiance. It brings to mind feminist activist Audre Lorde’s notion of ‘the
Moral and Political Philosophy, Macmillan,
London, 2000, p 99. erotic as power’:
3. Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual,
Schocken, New York, 1971, pp 34, 66.
forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for under
4. From definition of ‘riot’ from Merriam-
Webster, online dictionary, merriam-webster.
standing much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the
com/dictionary/riot; accessed 14 September threat of their difference.6
2019.
By making space and time for the creative interaction of artists from a
5. Maxine Ryder, Dorothy Berry: Bird on
a Wire, exh cat, Arts Project Australia, diversity of personal and social backgrounds, FEM-aFFINITY offers an
Melbourne, 2009, p 9. opportunity to hone our powers of attentive love, to see the unique needs
6. Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic of another but also to acknowledge shared experience. Guided by care
as Power (1978), Kore Press, Tucson, 2000, ethics and intersectional feminist principles, FEM-aFFINITY, as both a
available online at fredandfar.com/blogs/
ff-blog/the-erotic-as-power-by-audre-lorde; process and an exhibition, indeed ‘forms a bridge’ to new ways of feeling
accessed 14 September 2019. and thinking about contemporary art.29 —
Left to Right
Lisa Reid & Yvette Coppersmith
FEM-aFFINITY installation view— 30
Fulli Andrinopoulos /
Jane Trengove
Fulli Andrinopoulos is an established artist. Jane Trengove’s practice encompasses
Her work is characterised by soft, floating painting, installation, collaborative works
circular forms and saturated colours that and the coordination/curation of arts
exude intensity through the build-up of projects. Trengove reviews the relevance
dense layers of rich pigment. Her small- of painting traditions in contemporary
scale paintings and drawings are tactile and visual culture. Whilst working with a
ethereal while embodying an emotive quality number of fundamental techniques or
akin to that of artist Mark Rothko. Her elements, Trengove observes the imprecise
collections – often presented en masse in relationship of the real and the abstract,
grids or floating across a wall – are intimate, and the enduring dialogue between painting
with a sense of transcendence and the and photography. This is underpinned by
unknown. Trengove’s other preoccupations – perception/
reality and Western concepts of nature, both
Andrinopoulos has worked in the Arts
in art and, more widely, the environment.
Project Australia studio since 1991 and held
her first solo exhibition there in 2012. She Trengove has exhibited locally, interstate
has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, and overseas and her work is held in private
including at Melbourne Art Fair, Australian and public collections. She is represented by
Galleries, Bundoora Homestead and Linden Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.
New Art, Melbourne, as well as Galerie
— b. Melbourne, 1953
Impaire, Paris, and MADmusée and Musée
d’Art moderne et d’Art contemporain, Liège,
Belgium. Her work is held in the Monash
University Collection and private collections
throughout Australia.
— b. Melbourne, 196531 —
— 32 Left to Right, Top to Bottom Fulli Andrinopoulos Not titled 2014, Not titled 2016 Not titled 2012, Not titled 2012
33 —
Left to Right, Top to Bottom
Fulli Andrinopoulos
Not titled 2014, Not titled 2015
Not titled 2016, Not titled 2016— 34 Jane Trengove Untitled (Moon Series) 2019
35 —
Jane Trengove
Untitled (Moon Series) 2019— 36
Cathy Staughton /
Prudence Flint
An accomplished artist, Cathy Staughton’s Prudence Flint paints figures in psychologically
distinctive personal style speaks volumes charged environments. The viewer is invited
through her vibrant and direct way of into an intimate world where the figure’s
working. Her paintings and drawings pose, each articulated detail, and the flat
act as barometers of her moods, dreams expanses of colour create an interplay of
and desires. Symbolic characters, such tensions.
as robots and saintly figures embellished
Flint is a Melbourne-based artist. She has
with Staughton’s vivid and idiosyncratic
held solo exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne,
imagination, appear time and again, often
Canberra and Hobart and has exhibited in
reflecting a distinct good–bad dichotomy.
major state and regional galleries. She is a
Staughton also maintains a lifelong
seventh-time finalist in the Archibald Prize.
fascination with Luna Park due to family
She won the Len Fox Painting Award (2016),
connections and endless childhood memories.
the Portia Geach Memorial Award (2010)
Overtones of humour, pathos and nostalgia
and the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
endow her work with gravitas.
(2004). Her work is held in numerous public
Staughton has worked in the Arts Project and private collections. She had her first
Australia studio since 1989. She has international show at Mother’s Tankstation
presented four solo exhibitions in Australia Limited Dublin in May 2019.
and Belgium. She has exhibited in numerous
— b. Melbourne, 1962
group exhibitions, including at Melbourne
Art Fair and the Museum of Everything at
Selfridges, London. Her work is held in the
MADmusée, Liège, and the National Gallery
of Victoria.
— b. Melbourne, 196837 —
— 38 Cathy Staughton Catherine Bell Love Anne Baby Same 2019
39 —
Cathy Staughton
A Man Doctor Cut Poor Facts Mother
Help Me Out R2-D2 Robot Baby 2008— 40 Prudence Flint Cut on the Cross 2013
41 —
Prudence Flint
Feed 2019— 42
Dorothy Berry /
Jill Orr
Dorothy Berry is an established artist who Jill Orr is a contemporary artist based
approaches her practice with great passion, in Melbourne. She is best known for her
which is evident in the energy and vibrancy works in performance, photography, video
of her extensive output of paintings and and installation, which often explore the
drawings. Her work demonstrates a keen body and its positioning within social,
interest in people, animals and birds, which political and environmental contexts. Her
she often represents in a symbolic sense. She work explores the psycho-social, drawing
has developed a complex set of signifiers to on land and identities as they are shaped in,
construct personal narratives, and her work on and with the environment, be it country
often recounts experiences, events, beliefs or urban locales.
or opinions relating to her life. Her densely
Over the past 40 years, Orr has presented
packed compositions regularly consist of
works in Australia and internationally. Her
a combination of these symbols, instilling
works are held in major collections, including
the works with personal significance and
the National Gallery of Australia, National
poignancy.
Gallery of Victoria, and Griffith, RMIT and
Berry has worked in the Arts Project Monash university collections. Her works
Australia studio since 1985 and has presented are also held in numerous private collections
four solo exhibitions in Australia. She has in Australia, the Netherlands, England,
exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, France, the United States, China and
including at Heide Museum of Modern Art Belgium. Orr received an Australia Council
in Melbourne, Gallery 101 in Ottawa, the Fellowship to produce Antipodean Epic,
National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, which was followed by 2019 commissions
ILSMH Exposition Internationale in Paris to create Detritus Springs, Listen, Laundry and
and MADmusée and Musée d’Art moderne et Dark Night. She was represented in Australia:
d’Art contemporain in Liège. Antipodean Stories at PAC Padiglione d’Arte
Contemporanea, Milan, 2019–20.
— b. Melbourne, 1942
— b. Melbourne, 195243 —
— 44 Dorothy Berry Not titled 2012
45 — Dorothy Berry Not titled 2009
— 46 Left to Right, Top to Bottom Jill Orr Lunch with the Birds #9 1979 Lunch with the Birds #8 1979 Lunch with the Birds #6 1979 Lunch with the Birds #5 1979
47 —
Jill Orr
Antipodean Epic – Interloper 2016— 48
Wendy Dawson /
Helga Groves
Wendy Dawson is a painter whose art Helga Groves’ practice encompasses painting,
practice is one of repetition and structure. three-dimensional forms, drawing and
She produces her work by applying hundreds animation. Her works are informed by
of linear marks to the paper using paint pens rigorous research into geophysical processes
and permanent markers. Employing only and natural phenomena across the vast
two or three colours in each work, Dawson expanse of geological time. By balancing
gradually builds layers using repeated parallel tonal layers, colours and topographical
lines, creating a knitted quality on the paper patterns, her compositions transpose the
and the illusion that the picture is somehow rhythmic flow and luminosity of her subject
electrically charged. matter. The underlying power of Groves’
work lies in its ability to permeate the senses
Dawson has been a regular studio artist at
and mind of the viewer, conjuring vivid
Arts Project Australia since 2008. She has
memories of the physical experience of place.
been included in group exhibitions, including
Melbourne Art Fair, and has been featured Groves has exhibited extensively throughout
in each Annual Gala at Arts Project Australia. Australia and abroad. Selected solo
Her work is held in private collections exhibitions include Patterns from the heart of
throughout Australia. a planet, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2019;
Slow Moving Structures, Kronenberg Mais
— b. Melbourne, 1974
Wright, Sydney, 2018; and Tremor of Form,
Milani Gallery, Brisbane, 2017. Selected
group exhibitions include Arthur Guy Memorial
Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria,
2019; Chaos and Order, RMIT Gallery,
Melbourne, 2018; Limitless Horizon: Vertical
Perspective, QAGOMA, Brisbane, 2017; and
Quiddity, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, 2016.
Groves is represented by Sutton Gallery,
Melbourne; Milani Gallery, Brisbane; and
Kronenberg Mais Wright, Sydney.
— b. Ayr, Queensland, 196149 —
— 50 Wendy Dawson Not titled 2019
51 — Wendy Dawson Not titled 2019
— 52 Helga Groves Meteor Weavings (study) #1 2019
53 — Helga Groves Island 2016
— 54
Bronwyn Hack /
Heather Shimmen
Bronwyn Hack is an emerging painter, Heather Shimmen’s work overlaps the
printmaker, ceramicist, textile artist and zine historical and the imaginative within printed
maker. She has an intense art practice, which surfaces of dense imagery. Using obsessively
results in work that reflects her interest in hoarded images, stories, memories and
people, body parts and animals, particularly objects, Shimmen weaves fantasy narratives
wild and domestic dogs. Her artworks are that evoke other worlds. Her works cleverly
beautifully resolved, demonstrating her evade dominant historical narratives by
confident and gestural mark-making. Her creating new relationships between seemingly
early work centred on scenes of ardent distant ideas and concepts.
attraction featuring fictionalised characters
Shimmen has held solo exhibitions in
drawn from popular culture and her
Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide. Her
imagination. Her recent work reveals a
work has been included in numerous group
darker edge. While maintaining a focus on
shows, including exhibitions at the National
figurative subjects, she has begun prioritising
Gallery of Australia, Canberra, and the Print
specific sections of the body, including bones,
Council of Australia, Melbourne. Shimmen
reinterpreting the forms into compelling
was awarded Victorian Arts Board grants in
objects and paintings.
1983 and 1989, Print Council of Australia
Hack presented a solo exhibition at Arts patron and member print commissions in
Project Australia in 2016 and has exhibited 1983, 1991 and 2000, and the Silk Cut Award
in numerous group exhibitions, including at for Linocut Prints in 1998. She has taught
Spring1883 in Sydney, Melbourne Art Fair at several institutions, including the Lincoln
and Linden New Art, Melbourne. In 2018 Institute, Monash University, Australian
she was a finalist in the Darebin Art Prize, Catholic University and RMIT University.
Melbourne. Shimmen’s work is held in numerous
collections across Australia, including the
— b. Melbourne, 1979
National Gallery of Australia and several
regional and university collections. She
is represented by Australian Galleries,
Melbourne.
— b. Melbourne, 195755 —
— 56 Bronwyn Hack & Heather Shimmen Exquisite Corpse 2019 (detail)
57 —
Bronwyn Hack &
Heather Shimmen
Exquisite Corpse #2 2019 (detail)— 58 LEFT TO RIGHT Bronwyn Hack A Scene from Blood and Roses, Sex and Death 2014 Prom 2015
59 — Heather Shimmen Swamp Lady 2018
— 60
Eden Menta /
Janelle Low
Eden Menta is an emerging artist who Janelle Low was the first in her family to be
works across various mediums, including born outside of Asia. Utilising photography
photography, collage, drawing and painting. as her primary medium, Low explores the
Her work is intuitive, dynamic and subject internal and external conflicts that arise from
to change depending on her state of mind in growing up in multicultural Australia and
any given moment. Interests woven through navigating its shifting and evolving cultural
her work include pop culture, self-portraiture landscape. Her work explores the sense of
and an intense curiosity about insects. Edgy displacement and ‘otherness’ felt between her
and instilled with wry humour, Menta’s heritage and cultural upbringing, which leads
work encompasses the macabre as well as to questions about identity and acceptance.
observations of the world around her.
In 2013 Low became the second female,
Menta has worked in the Arts Project and youngest, winner of the National
Australia studio since 2013. She has exhibited Photographic Portrait Prize presented by
in numerous group exhibitions in Melbourne, the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra,
including at Centre for Contemporary and in 2017 was selected as a finalist in the
Photography, Brunswick Street Gallery, No William and Winifred Bowness Photography
Vacancy and Gertrude Glasshouse, as well as Prize. Currently based in Melbourne, Low
the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. has exhibited nationally and internationally
and has work held in public and private
— b. Melbourne, 1994
collections.
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